Upgrading a Bachmann 4-6-2

When it comes to what era of railroading I like to model, I usually go with anything from the 1940s to the 1970s. This encompasses the steam to diesel transition period, a wide variety of main and secondary passenger trains, and a time of great change for railroads. Last year, I acquired 17 various passenger car kits from an estate my model railroad club took in. The original owner designated five cars to be built to various B&O prototypes, and I wanted to fulfill their dreams. My goal was to build the cars and create a secondary B&O passenger train. Nothing specific but heavily inspired by train numbers 233 and 238 that ran through Columbus in my desired era. The construction of these cars is a great story on its own and will be covered in another blog post. Motive power for this consist had to be a B&O locomotive, preferably a geep or a Pacific-type steam locomotive. I was looking for a brass model to head this consist, but that proved to not be feasible. So, I selected the next best thing - a Bachmann USRA 4-6-2. This had the benefit of running well without much tinkering needed, and it would be a great platform to upgrade with sound and superdetail parts.

Our specimen for this project. A friend found this for me at the Amherst Railroad Hobby Show in January.

The model as it first arrived to me, ripe for further upgrades.

This post will focus on the detailing on the front of the smokebox. I want to add a handrail on the upper part of the smokebox front and replace the headlight and marker lights with B&O accurate parts.

Finding super detail parts for models is relatively easy if you know where to look. The first step is searching for prototype photos. I really like northeast.railfan.net, they have many good quality photos to peruse through. Comparing those photos to parts catalogs from Precision Scale and Cal-Scale is next. I determined which headlight and marker lights would be best.

Left to right: headlight bracket, headlight, handrail stanchions, and marker lights. Also shown is some 26-gauge wire and the stock smokebox front after the original lights were removed.

B&O 5220 in the 1950s. This photo shows the front end clearly and shows where the headlight, marker lights and extra handrail should be installed. Photo from northeast.railfan.net.

Adding super detail parts is a relatively straightforward process. First, I took the boiler off the chassis and cut the headlight wires. I intend to reuse the factory headlight LED as it is a nice color for an incandescent bulb, and it fits in the new headlight casting. Then, the original headlight and marker lights were pulled off with pliers. I was careful to not damage these parts as I may reuse them on another project someday. Then the new parts were cleaned up with small files to remove any unnecessary brass left over from the manufacturing process. The hole on the smokebox where the original headlight stood will work for the new bracket, it just needed to be enlarged slightly.

Mocking up where the headlight will go and how the bracket will fit.

The extra handrail needed three stanchions to form a half-round railing. I marked where the stanchions should be with a pencil, then used a push pin to start the holes so the drill would not wander. I used a #68 drill bit in a pin vise to drill out the holes and fit the stanchions. A few inches of 26-gauge wire was cut from the roll, and with one end in a small vise and some pliers, it was straightened slightly. The marker lights were cut from the brass sprues and corresponding holes were drilled with a #62 drill bit